Farmville the Magazine - October 2022

Editor's Notebook Fall traditions

At this point of the year, we’re knee deep in fall. It’s by far my favorite season. You’ve got college football, right down the road at Hampden-Sydney. You’ve got church fall festivals, chili cookoffs and a couple seasonal favorites showing up at local stores. The leaves are changing color and it’s not quite bone-chillingly cold, while thankfully not blast-furnace hot.

It’s also a time to focus on traditions. Growing up, I loved preparing for Halloween. We put up decorations, picked out costumes and loudly announced how much candy we’d get on the big night. We also had it in our heads that October meant it was time for Apple Brown Betty. The dessert, which anyone my age or younger in the family will argue that my mom perfected, came out at one time and one time only.

Brian Carlton, Editor

an Apple Brown Betty for dessert. I have no clue how that tradition started, but every year, it was the same. The cooks rotated and the recipes changed, but the idea remained. Even now that the family is split between multiple states, when we gather together in October, you can guarantee an Apple Brown Betty will be part of at least one meal.

We all have family traditions, customs dealing with everything from food to simply how we treat each other. And that’s what this edition is focusing on. Ireland Seagle will bring you the story of how Jorge Solorio and his family launched La Parota, which is now a Farmville staple.

You’ll also be able to flashback to another Farmville tradition, the Heart of Virginia festival. Going on 42 years, flip through the photos and see what you missed this time, while making a note to put it on your calendar for next year.

And then there is a cute Halloween recipe. Alexa Massey takes you through how to make mummy jalapeño poppers and witch’s eye meatballs.

I grew up on a 315-acre farm and late September, early October brought the fall harvest and hay baling season. It was tradition that on those weekends, as we came in from working in the fields, we’d have dinner and

So pick up a copy, read about other traditions and when you’re done, send an email to Editor@FarmvilletheMag.com. Let me know about the traditions you and your family share.

Brian Carlton is editor of Farmville the Magazine.

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HEART OF VIRGINIA FESTIVAL

After nearly three years, the Heart of Virginia Festival returned to Farmville on Saturday, Sept. 17. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, scheduled events in both of the last two years had to be put on hold and then canceled. After that brief pause, the event returned and expanded to two days for its 42nd edition.

This year’s festival also marked a change in when the event is held. In the past, it served as almost a summer kickoff, taking place in early May. But it was moved to fall this year to try and include more parts of the community. Being held in May meant the semester had ended for most Longwood University and Hampden-Sydney College students. At that point, the majority had already packed up and headed home. By holding it in September, more college students were able to take part. Also, Sept. 17 was part of Longwood’s Family Weekend, so parents and other family members were able to get involved as well.

All total, an estimated 5,000 people showed up for this year’s event.

Where Am I?

LAST ISSUE'S WINNER: Theresa O'Dell, of Lynchburg, is the winner for the September edition of Where Am I? She knew that the last photo was part of the Farmville Chiropractic sign located on Third Street in Farmville. O'Dell wins a free subscription to Farmville the Magazine

The Heart of Virginia offers beautiful scenery and architecture throughout downtown Farmville.

“Where Am I?” offers residents a chance to identify one of our hidden gems across town. If you think you know where this photo was taken, email your answer to WhereAmI@ FarmvilletheMag.com. We’ll draw one lucky name from among the correct answers for an annual subscription to Farmville the Magazine

Mummy jalapeño poppers and witch’s eye meatballs

Halloween hors d'oeuvresHalloween hors d'oeuvres

Story by Alexa Massey

When I was a little girl, Halloween was my absolute favorite holiday. I lived for the spooky season of colorful costumes, scary monsters and –most of all– free candy.

As an adult, I continue to look forward to Halloween each year, especially when it comes to throwing a good party. And no Halloween party is complete without an array of scary snacks and haunted hors d'oeuvres for guests to munch on.

In this edition of Farmville the Magazine, I’ve come to offer you not just one but two appetizer recipes that will surely be a hit at your next shindig. My Gruyère-stuffed “witch’s eye” meatballs are as mouth watering as they are scary, and these air fryer bacon-wrapped jalapeño popper mummies with brown sugar and Tajín won’t last ten minutes around some hungry ghouls and goblins. Considering doubling or even tripling the recipes if feeding a crowd.

AIR FRYER BACON-WRAPPED JALAPEÑO POPPER MUMMIES WITH BROWN SUGAR AND TAJÍN

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 13 minutes

Total time: 33 minutes

Servings: 10 poppers

Ingredients:

• 5 jalapeños, halved and hollowed out

• 8 oz. softened cream cheese

• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

• 1 tsp. onion powder

• 1 tsp. garlic powder

• 1 tsp. paprika

• 5 strips of bacon, halved lengthwise

• 1 tbs. brown sugar

• 1/2 tbs. Tajín seasoning

• Salt and pepper, to taste

• 1 bag of candy eyeballs, for decorating, if desired

GRUYÈRE-STUFFED “WITCH’S EYE” MEATBALLS

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 24 minutes

Total time: 44 minutes

Servings: 12-15 meatballs

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground beef

• 1 egg, beaten

• 1/4 cup shredded Swiss cheese

• Approx 3/4 cup shredded Gruyère or white cheddar cheese

• 1/4 cup Panko breadcrumbs

• 1/2 tbs. Italian seasoning

• 1/2 tbs. dried parsley

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced

• 1/4 cup finely chopped yellow onions

• 1 jar of pimento-stuffed olives

• Salt and pepper, to taste Recipes:

The beauty of these two recipes is that they can be made simultaneously by cooking the jalapeño poppers in the air fryer while

the meatballs cook in the oven. To make the jalapeño poppers, begin by slicing five fresh jalapeño peppers in half. Using a spoon, carefully hollow out the inside of the jalapeños, making sure to remove any of the seeds and white membrane inside. If you like your jalapeño poppers extra spicy, leave a few of the seeds in.

After hollowing out your jalapeños, prepare the filling by mixing together the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, onion and garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper. Using a spoon or silicone spatula, carefully spoon the mixture into each of the halved jalapeños.

After filling the jalapeños with the cream cheese mixture, prepare the mummies’ wrappings by slicing five strips of bacon in half, lengthwise, creating ten long and thin strips. Sprinkle these bacon strips with brown sugar and Tajín, a magical and unique seasoning blend of chili peppers, lime and sea salt. Rubbing these two seasonings into the bacon will create a beautiful blend of sweet and spicy that will make our poppers dangerously addicting.

To cook your jalapeño poppers, preheat your air fryer to 350 degrees fahrenheit for three minutes. After your air fryer has reached your desired temperature, place the jalapeño poppers in your air fryer, making sure they are not touching one another. Cook the poppers for 13-16 minutes, watching carefully to ensure they do not overcook. Once the poppers are finished cooking, allow them to cool before decorating with some optional (but adorable) candy eyes to get that perfect mummy look.

To make the “witch’s eye” meatballs, begin by gently beating one egg. Add the egg, ground beef, Swiss cheese, garlic, onions, seasonings and breadcrumbs to a large mixing bowl together with ¼ cup of your Gruyère cheese. If you’re not a fan of Gruyère, substitute it with white cheddar cheese.

Gently mix these ingredients together in the bowl, being careful not to overwork the meat mixture. Once everything is well-combined, take a golf ball-sized scoop of your meat mixture and gently flatten it out into the palm of your hand, using your thumb to press down and create a pocket to place our extra Gruyère. Stuff the pocket with a large pinch of Gruyère cheese and then close the meatball up, rolling it in your hands until you have a perfect sphere.

After forming your meatballs and stuffing them with Gruyère cheese, it’s time to make your meatballs into “eyeballs” by opening up your jar of pimento-stuffed olives. Cut the olives in half and gently press half of an olive into the top of each meatball, creating the eyes. Once ready, bake the meatballs at 425 degrees fahrenheit for approximately 24 minutes until cooked through.

And there you have it. These spooktacular appetizers will be the star of your next big Halloween party. They’re ugly and adorable; delicious and terrifying; and they go amazingly well with some sweet chili dipping sauce! Of course, don’t get hung up on their scary nature. Skip the candy eyes and leave off the olives for some delicious treats which can be enjoyed year-round.

Stuffed and wrapped jalapeño poppers are ready to go into the air fryer.

From the Ground Up

MEADOWS

A labor intensive gardening trend

In midsummer, Overton McGehee’s wildflower meadow is awash with yellow black-eyed Susans and pink monarda.

Story by Dr. Cynthia Wood

Wildflower meadows have been an important feature of the British landscape for hundreds of years. Nevertheless, they didn’t develop as natural features of the landscape, but as human creations, resulting from hundreds of years of land management practices. A well-kept meadow there can be home to as many as 100 species of plants and support a complex web of bees, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, birds, small mammals and even fungi. Unfortunately, since the 1930s, over 90 percent of the wildflower meadows have disappeared.

While we don’t have the same long history of wildflower meadows here, we have recently come to understand their importance and to appreciate their beauty. They’re suddenly trendy, but, as many gardeners have learned, planting a meadow isn’t a way to get out of gardening chores. It’s not possible to toss some seeds onto a grassy area and expect a meadow to emerge.

A local couple, Al and Betsy Lookofsky of Pamplin know all about the work involved in developing a relatively small wildflower meadow or pollinator patch as they call it. So does Overton McGehee in

Fluvanna County; he has developed an 18-acre meadow. Both the Lookofskys and McGehee are in the third year of their projects. The Lookofskys are interested in supporting pollinators and creating an area of beauty, while McGehee has broader objective for his project. He wants to provide habitat for quail, as well pollinators and other wildlife. Because he is participating in in the USDA DREP Upland Habitat Program, he has specific guidelines to follow.

Whether you’re developing an acre of land or a much larger parcel, the guidelines for starting are the same. The first step is always to destroy all the vegetation on the plot of land. Gardeners working with small areas can closely mow the grass and then cover it with plastic and several inches of wood chips to kill the underlying vegetation, a process called solarization. Larger plots of land require different techniques, usually either herbicides or fire. In many cases, the land is then lightly tilled and planted with a cover crop, such as buckwheat, which will then be mowed down to stubble in late winter.

In early spring, carefully selected seeds will be sown. Some will

sprout quickly, while others may not send up shoots until the following year. What to plant? Well, that depends on where you live and your objectives. It’s generally safe to limit your choice of natives to plants that grow in your county or perhaps the surrounding ones. Mainstays include various varieties of milkweed, mountain mints, goldenrods, asters, bee balm, black-eyed Susans, and native grasses. If aesthetics, rather than purity, are a consideration, then many gardeners add coneflowers and other pollinator-friendly nonnatives. Many developers of meadows will mow their meadows again after their new plants have emerged.

During the second year of a meadow’s development, it tends to look rather spotty, not at all full and lush. By the third year, however, the plants will be thick and humming with pollinators. New plants that weren’t in the original mix of seeds will also begin to appear. Some will be welcome natives or harmless nonnatives, such as Queen Anne’s lace, while others will need to be removed if they are aggressive growers.

Even after all of this work, the steward of a wildflower meadow’s work isn’t done. If just left alone, the meadow will quickly revert to weeds and eventually small trees and shrubs. Regularly scheduled burns will be needed to renew the meadow. McGehee has been advised by the USDA that he can substitute light disking every three years for burning. Why? The USDA says that light disking imitates the actions of a herd of bison passing through!

Not many of us gardeners are willing to develop an 18-acre wildflower meadow, but most of us can apply the concept to open areas of our property. Less lawn, more plants. To get some ideas for what to do, plan a visit to Charlottesville where there are mini wildflower meadows in the Belmont neighborhood, near the University of Virginia Hospital, and around Martha Jefferson Hospital. The town of Crozet has used wildflower plantings to unify several neighborhoods lining Jarman’s Gap Road. Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden also has a wildflower meadow.

A well-planned meadow includes a mix of tall and lowgrowing plants. This is Diodia virginica, Virginia buttonweed, which sprawls across the ground.

Plant pollinator-friendly species and the insects will come.

Left, various species of milkweed are a mainstay of most wildflower meadows. Right, sometimes plants, such as this Queen Anne’s lace, just appear in a pollinator patch or meadow. This one is harmless, but others might need to be eliminated.

Food for thought

La Parota is a constant community favorite

Story by Ireland Seagle

Imagine walking in the doors of a modest Mexican restaurant off of South Main Street. You’re greeted by a welcoming atmosphere and a pleasant host or hostess. You see all kinds of people, including several families, a small group of college students, and even people coming from church. A server stops by your table to bring tortilla chips and salsa. Your server recognizes you and remembers your usual order. This is your experience at La Parota, a family-owned and managed restaurant in the Farmville

community.

A little over two decades ago, Jorge Solorio and his two brothers, Martin and Raul, came together to establish La Parota. When one brother, Raul, who worked at Mexican restaurants in Lynchburg, visited Farmville, he noticed the lack of diverse restaurants in the area. He contacted Jorge and his other brother, Martin, to visit the location together. Jorge and his brothers agreed that Farmville would be an ideal location for their new restaurant

Chile Relleno, a unique signature dish that La Parota makes differently than most Mexican restaurants.

Photo by Jay Solorio

with the community’s position as a two-college town.

Then, in 2000, Jorge and his brothers opened La Parota at 2104 South Main Street near the present-day Quality Inn hotel. While the name “La Parota” does not directly translate to English, the business’ name is significant to the Solorio family. The owners, Jorge and Maria Estela Solorio (who goes by Estela) are from Michoacán, Mexico. They met on a small ranch in southwestern Mexico called La Parota, which is on the border between Jalisco and Michoacán. This ranch is populated with parota trees, which

inspired the ranch’s name.

Soon after its opening, La Parota became a favorite in the community. Jorge and Raul primarily ran the restaurant for the first few years, then Jorge mainly managed it as time progressed.

Jay Solorio, La Parota’s General Manager and one of Jorge and Estela’s sons, began his current managerial career at their family-owned restaurant. “I worked as a host, server, and bartender, and I have experience in the kitchen as well,” he explains. Jay did not take on a management role until La Parota moved to their current location near Tractor Supply. Jorge and

Estela’s second son, Ricky, then began helping with the family business as a host and bartender about seven years ago.

Unfortunately, a devastating fire broke out in February 2013 at La Parota, forcing the business to close for seven months. Jorge’s brothers decided to follow other paths and removed themselves from business ownership, allowing Jorge and Estela to solely own and manage La Parota. Less than a year after experiencing the destructive fire, the restaurant reopened in its current location, 1503 South Main Street, next door to Bojangles.

Farmville the Magazine 21 Carlos Flores, serving the Black family which includes David, Judy, Mia, Troy and Mary.

Several years after this setback, La Parota once again faced hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The restaurant lost quite a few servers and kitchen staff. Jay Solorio states, “We took a hit financially, and the pandemic set us back.” As restrictions eased, a few of the servers returned to La Parota, but the Solorios hired an entirely new kitchen staff. “We’re still trying to catch up financially (from the pandemic), but inflation is making it difficult,” Solorio adds.

During the pandemic, the Solorios were able to make minor improvements to their restaurant. In early 2021, after a dire need for them, new floors were installed. La Parota also upgraded their logo then updated their menus and interior decor to display their new logo. “We tried to make it more modern but wanted to stay with the same family atmosphere,” Jay Solorio explains.

Now, with Jorge and Estela slowly transitioning to retirement, Jay and Ricky Solorio are the primary managers of La Parota. Together, the brothers oversee the whole operation, including hiring employees to updating menus and everything in between. Jay acts as the General Manager who oversees larger projects, including the future of the business, while Ricky maintains a slightly lesser role. “He is still young, so he is still learning,” Jay explains.

La Parota is known for its signature dishes. The locos, including the pollo loco and shrimp loco, have a type of meat served over rice then topped with cheese dip. “The locos are most popular amongst families and college students,” Jay Solorio explains. Their chile relleno, which consists of peppers stuffed with beef and cheese, is unique for its red sauce. This dish is made differently at La Parota than the versions served in other Mexican restaurants. “We have customers come from all surrounding areas to get this dish,” Solorio states. La Parota’s carne asada, a thin-cut and flat meat steak, is another signature dish they make differently from other Mexican restaurants.

As for the business’ future plans, the Solorios are considering expanding the restaurant and adding a location in Richmond. They are also planning to complete more renovations at their Farmville location, along with adding new signature drink items. Ultimately, the Solorios want La Parota to continue serving the Farmville community and to continue providing a welcoming space with a family atmosphere.

These photos show the damage from the 2013 fire. Photo by Ashley Fuller with the Longwood University Rotunda newspaper.

Margaritas are popular drinks at La Parota, they offer frozen strawberry and mango as well as the traditional lime margarita frozen or on the rocks.

Two of the more popular dishes at La Parota are their Pollo Loco and their unique signature Carne Asada. Photos by Jay Solorio and Ireland Seagle.